The Year You Stole My Heart
by anne black
Summary: Amelia was having a hectic year. Her best friend Kelly fancied an unobtainable man, her brother Adam was convincing her to intern at the Hospital Wing, Albus was battling against his mortal enemy Mariah and Amelia was trying to ignore her feelings for her brothers best friend James Potter. (Prequel to Illusions of a perfect marriage)
1. Chapter 1

"Adam, can you get back over here?" came the loud call of a tall woman. She was in her forties and had a stern look on her face as she yelled at her son, who had tried to run off from where they were standing.

The family had arrived on the platform a good ten minutes ago and the older woman was trying to make the most of the time she had left with her two children, before they left to go attend their school Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  
Hogwarts was a boarding school and she was only able to see her children when they returned home during the holidays. It was tough leaving her children, but she knew that this was the best place for them to get their education.

"Calm down, dear." The older man said. He placed a hand on his son Adam's shoulder and gripped it tightly, placing his other arm around his daughter's shoulders. "The kids are just excited to see their friend that's all."

The woman calmed down a bit before she pulled her son into a hug, crushing him slightly. Adam held his hand out to his sister for help, she chose to ignore him. "I know. I just want to spend more time with them, that's all."

"It'll be alright, mum. I'll send you letters and so will Amelia." Adam said, muffled by his mothers hug. Amelia stifled a chuckle; every time they went back to school the same scene would occur, her mother almost refusing to let them go back on the train and her dad having to be the one to convince her mother that she was being silly. It was embarrassing the first few years, but now she sympathised with her.

However, Adam was still embarrassed. Even though you could tell that he was a total mummy's boy, he thought that he was too cool for his mum's hugs. He was a seventeen year old boy after all.

"You are such a big girl!"

Adam pulled away from his mother and finally turned around with a smile. A tall dark haired boy skipped up to where they stood and engulfed Adam in a big bear hug, making sure to squeeze him tightly as he lifted him into the air. Adam let out a small yell before James dropped him and turned to the rest of them, leaving Adam to recover on the floor.

"Hello, Mr and Mrs Campbell-Price." he said, grinning widely at Adam and Amelia's parents before he turned to face Amelia.

"Amelia, you just get more beautiful every day." James cried as he pulled Amelia into a much gentler hug then he gave Adam. "And how is my second family?"

It was true that James was like another family member. Being in the same year and house as Adam at school, the two became inseparable quickly into their first year at school. Both James and Adam alternated between staying over at each other's houses during the holidays, the only time they seemed to be separated was the last two days of the holidays, but even then they would send each other many letters. If Amelia didn't know that James had a girlfriend then she would get suspicious by just how close the two were.

"I think the trains about to leave," James told them, Amelia and Adam were both quickly engulfed in the same hug from their mother. James let out a small laugh as he waited for the others to free themselves, when they did, they each gave their father a hug goodbye and grabbed for their trunks. Their mother wiping her tears behind them as they dragged their trunks.

James was quick to take Amelia's from her and lifted it onto the train, Adam scoffed next to him as he lugged his own trunk onto the train. James laughed before shoving him with his shoulder and Amelia climbed aboard the train after them.

They all walked down to an empty compartment, which already had James's trunk in and set themselves down. After they had all helped to put the trunks up in the rack they relaxed.

"I can't believe this is our last year at school," Adam said, James nodded at him.

"It is really weird that this time next year we'll be having jobs."

"Here you lot are!"

Amelia turned and smiled as her best friend came into the compartment dragging her trunk behind her, Adam was quick to pick it up for her and place it with the others. Kelly thanked him before sitting down next to Amelia.

"Sorry we didn't wait for you," Amelia said honestly. "But James had to drag us away from mum again."

"Oh," Kelly said in understanding she knew exactly how Amelia's mum was when saying goodbye to her children. "I'm quite surprised you made it onto the train."

They all laughed as Kelly pulled off her light jacket and placed it next to her. "I was nearly late; my dad thought it would be a good idea to attempt to do some shopping before dropping me off here. Why he thought he'd have time I have no idea? I just made it onto the train before it started moving."

Amelia laughed as Kelly scooped her long blonde hair up and placed it in a ponytail so it could get off of her face. She then turned to James and began looking around him as though something was missing.

"Where's Sarah?" she asked, still looking around. "I thought she would have been here practically attached to you."

James let out a fake laugh before shaking his head at Kelly, who smiled at him, Adam laughed before stretching his legs out and resting his feet on Amelia's lap, she placed her arms on top of them.

"How am I meant to know where she is? On the train somewhere," James said with a shrug before glancing at the door. James had begun going out with Sarah Harris halfway through last year, she was a seventh year Gryffindor like him. She was a really nice girl and seemed to genuinely care about everyone around her, but she seemed just a bit full of herself.

Amelia and Kelly had made fun of her a few times when they'd had their late night chats alone, that Amelia wasn't proud of. But it's what she and Kelly did and she knew that every other girl done the same, whether or not they wanted to admit it.

"So how often did you see her during the holiday?" Kelly asked James, James shrugged and Adam answered for him.

"I saw her about five times in all the time I was with James," he stated.

"Which was everyday apart from yesterday," Amelia said with a laugh. "I hope to god you at least sent her letters."

"Yeah... once or twice." James shrugged again, his face going slightly red.

"As if!" Adam scoffed shoving James with his shoulder. "You sent her letters practically every day; you should have heard him giggling every time a letter came through the post for him."

James turned and punched Adam on the arm. "You're a prick you know."

Adam laughed as he rubbed his arm where James had punched him before punching him back.

"Ow! That hurt," James cried before grabbing hold of Adam in a headlock and slapping him on the top of the head. Adam kicked his feet off of Amelia, scratching her legs in the process.

"You loser!" Amelia cried, hissing slightly as she rubbed her legs before she got up and tried to sit on Adam and help James to beat him up. Adam let out loud laughs as Amelia began poking him in the ribs, Kelly soon joined in for the fun of it and helped Amelia to poke Adam.

"Anything from the tro - oh!"

They all looked up from where they were to see that the trolley lady had arrived at their door and was looking at them in shock. They all pulled away from each other, laughing and Adam stood up, his hair sticking up in different directions and his face red from laughing. He stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out a few galleons. "What does everyone want? James and I are buying."

"Oh, am I now?"

"Yes. You grabbed me in a place that shouldn't have been grabbed, so you're giving me some money for food."

James laughed as he stood up, digging his hand into his pocket in search of some change. "Well, you should have said if you didn't enjoy it."

The trolley lady was still staring at them in shock, her mouth opening and closing as though she was going to say something and then decided against it.

"I never said I didn't enjoy it," Adam said as Amelia and Kelly picked what they wanted from the trolley and sat back down, thanking Adam. Adam took James's money before piling some items into James's hands. He gave the trolley lady the correct money and a wink for good measure before walking over to where James had placed the food. "But that's for tonight."

The trolley lady quickly dashed away, leaving the others to laugh loudly.

They had managed to get through quite a bit of the food by the time the compartment door opened again. They looked up, but before they could see who it was, the person quickly dived on the floor and hid behind Amelia and Kelly's legs. Amelia in surprise jumped, sending her every flavour jelly beans scattering everywhere, she let out a scream of shock before looking down to see who it was that had just entered.

She could see a mop of black curly hair and a hand sneaking out to grab a bean from the floor. They quickly ate the bean before saying loudly. "Ew. It's a cardboard box flavour bean."

"Albus, what are you doing?" James cried, shaking his head at his little brother. He tried to grab for Albus's leg and drag him up from the floor, but Albus kicked him away.

"She's after me!" he cried before balling himself up and muttering to himself, 'Think invisible thoughts.'  
They all looked at each other in confusion before someone else ran to the open door and looked around.

Mariah Hayes, a girl from Albus's year and house was standing at the door, her eyes quickly searching around the compartment as though looking for someone; she was about five foot seven and had shoulder length brown hair. A frown was set on her face.

"Where is he?" she asked the room.

"Who?" James replied, trying to look innocent.

"Albus, of course!" Mariah stated before looking at the floor, she spotted a trainer on the floor and saw something behind Kelly and Amelia's legs. She quickly pointed at it. "What's that?"

They all quickly exchanged glances before Kelly spoke up. "Oh, that's my robes."

The others quickly gave each other questioning glances, before they quickly nodded along with Kelly. "It's where I keep them so they don't... err... Crease"

Mariah continued frowning for a moment; the others knew that she wouldn't believe their story, but they were surprised when they saw Mariah smile widely at them. "That's such a great idea! Oh well if you see Potter can you tell him that he's going to die." and with those words she left the compartment. They all exchanged looks before letting out a few laughs.

"Well, that was close!" Albus said as he shimmied out from under the seats. As he shuffled across the floor James was quick to use him as a footstool, stopping him from moving any further. Albus let out a loud, "Oomph!"

"Not so fast baby brother." James said, pinning Albus down with his feet.

"I'm only a year younger than you," Albus cried, trying to shake off James who wasn't budging.

"Minor details, what in the name of Adam's sweaty, stinking socks was that all about?"

Adam didn't look offended by James's comment.

"It's got nothing to do with you. Let me up!" Albus cried.

"Speak or we get Adam's socks and shove them in your face!"

Adam quickly grabbed for his shoes and slowly began to undo his shoelaces.

"No. Not that, anything but that. Fine, I'll talk." Albus said slightly muffled from his face lying on the floor. "All I did was try and push her off of the train so she could go live with the herd of cows we saw, but somehow she took offense to that and began threatening my life. She's totally unreasonable that girl."

James shook his head at his brother, before turning to nod at Adam, who quickly took his shoe off and pushed his foot in Albus's face. Albus let out a loud cry before he managed to shove James off of him and scramble to his feet, retching slightly.

"That went in my mouth you Flobberworm!" Albus said, rubbing his tongue with his shirt, which didn't look at all clean. Albus glared at the two laughing boys before lunging forwards, James and Adam both cowered away from Albus, but Albus merely grabbed hold of some of their food and legged it from the compartment.

Strangely enough, that was the most entertainment of the whole train ride.

~~

The feast was as amazing as it had been the previous years, stuffed full of food Kelly and Amelia both watched the headmaster Professor Longbottom with tired eyes, wanting nothing more than to go to sleep. But Amelia knew that she would have to help take the Hufflepuff first years to the common room, with the help of Kelly. They had both been made into prefects over the holidays.

She stood up slowly as Professor Longbottom told them all to go to their common rooms, and called loudly for the first year students to all walk over to her.

After they had congregated around both her and Kelly, they led them out of the hall and off to a separate corridor just near the doors. Leading them past the still life of a bowl of fruit they stopped at a large pile of barrels.

Kelly explained in detail about what order to tap the barrels to gain entrance to the common room and what would happen if the wrong barrels were tapped. Making sure to explain to them that if they forgot how to get in then just to go and find any Hufflepuff, they could and ask them to get either Kelly or Amelia, or to help them get into the common room.

They all walked up a sloping passage and the first years all looked around in awe as they entered the common room. Its ceilings were low and looked a little like a badgers set. It had such a homely feel to it and Amelia stood and breathed in the musky smell that made her feel like she was home.

It was still exactly as she had imagined it, the room was decorated in cheerful yellow colours with black here and there. Plants were hanging all around the ceilings, the tendrils of which were reaching down and going along the ceiling of the common room, resembling roots.

Amelia and Kelly both told the first years where the girls and boys dorms were and the bathrooms, before leaving them to their own devices. Amelia and Kelly each then walked to the sixth year girl dormitories and walked over to the same beds they had used since they joined the school.

Amelia lay down on her soft mattress, running her hands over the patchwork quilt on her bed; each bed had these, and smiled widely as Kelly unpacked her own stuff from her trunk.

It felt good to be home.


	2. Chapter 2

Before she knew it, Amelia was waking up again. She had fallen asleep almost instantly the night before.  
When she sat up in her bed she saw that Kelly was already pottering about the room, grabbing a few things and placing them into her school bag. She gave Amelia a cheery, "Hello," as Amelia stretched and walked towards the shared bathroom, that a few of the other girls were about to vacate, running a hand through her long dark hair. They said their hellos as Amelia walked in.

A good ten minutes later Amelia was already washed and dressed in her school clothes. Making her way down to the common room with Kelly, who was waiting patiently for her friend, they began chatting about what classes they thought that they would have that day. A few first years were hanging around the common room and Amelia offered to take them all down to the great hall for breakfast. They followed behind Amelia and Kelly talking animatedly between them all.

As they entered the hall, the first years all walked further down the table together after thanking Kelly and Amelia for their help. Amelia smiled as she sat down, grabbing for a few rashers of bacon to put on her plate before adding a few sausages and an egg, she picked up her knife and fork and began eating as Kelly pretty much got the same breakfast.

"Can you believe that that was us not that long ago?" Kelly said to Amelia as she nodded in the direction of the first years that all seemed to just huddle together.

"What are you talking about?" came a voice that caused Kelly to roll her eyes, Amelia gave a smile as her brother and James sat down opposite them at the table. "You're both still that small."

James and Adam chuckled together as Adam reached forward and grabbed for a piece of buttered toast, spreading jam on it as James took Amelia's orange juice and drank some of it.

"And why on earth are you sitting at this table?" Amelia asked them both.

"Showing inter-house unity, of course," Adam said, smiling at Amelia and winking at Kelly who just shook her head at Adam.

"That and you have the best jam," James said as he took a piece of buttered toast and spread jam on it like Adam.

"I'm sure there's blueberry jam on your table too," Amelia told them, as she finished her breakfast and took her drink back off of James.

"You would have thought so, but no. Apparently Gryffindor house isn't good enough for blueberry jam." Adam said through his mouthful of toast, spraying crumbs everywhere. Amelia grimaced as she wiped them off her sleeve and onto her brothers. "Sorry sis." he said after he had swallowed his toast.

"Any idea what classes you've got today?" Amelia asked as she saw her head of house, making their way down the table handing out time tables.

Adam pulled out his own time table having gotten it off of his head of house before he came over to their table.  
He scanned it quickly before saying, "I have double potions with jerk head here," he said, pointing to James, who grinned at him wildly, showing the half chewed toast in his mouth. Both Kelly and Amelia were disgusted. "Then I have a break, followed by double Alchemy, lunch and then Herbology."

"And I basically have the same, only I have Care of Magical creatures when Adam has Alchemy." James told them after swallowing his breakfast.

"I can't believe that you're taking Alchemy," Kelly said with a shake of her head. "I think you're the only one here that's doing it."

Adam laughed. "There are at least five other people doing that class, all from Ravenclaw... and most of them girls."

"So, what is Alchemy about then?" Kelly asked, raising an eyebrow at Adam, who laughed before shaking his head at her.

"Please." he cried, looking at James, who shrugged and shook his head, as though calling Kelly crazy.

Kelly was about to argue back when Professor Alcott arrived next to them.

"Well hello there Professor, are you looking forward to this morning's class?" Adam asked with a smile, Professor Alcott was the head of Hufflepuff house as well as the teacher for Potions. She was a woman in her mid thirties, slightly plump and with short brown spiky hair, her bright and bubbly personality was infectious and she was an incredibly fun teacher, she liked to make learning fun.

"As much as I ever do with you two in my class," she said with a shake of her head at the two of them. "As long as you don't try and cause any trouble."

Both Adam and James scoffed.  
"We don't cause trouble, and we're offended because you think that we would. We bid you all goodbye; we won't stand for any more of your blatant fabrications!" James cried with mock outrage across his face as both he and Adam stood up. Adam shook his head at the teacher before bursting out in fake tears. James cradled his arms around his best friend and gave him a comforting pat on the back. "Don't worry, Adam. It's okay. We'll just have to have a new favourite teacher."

And with that they both walked away from the table, each laughing loudly and shoving each other joyfully. Professor Alcott shook her head and sighed, "Boys." before handing the two girls their timetables. "I see that you've both done excellent in your O.W.L's, well done. Let's hope you can keep it up for your end of year exams."

She then walked off to speak to a few other students, leaving Amelia and Kelly to look over their timetables and compare them. They both had a free period first, then transfiguration second lesson, a break before the third lesson which for Amelia was Potions and for Kelly was Divination, fourth lesson was Charms for both of them, then lunch. Their last lesson was Defence against the dark arts for Amelia and History of Magic for Kelly.

"Not many together," Kelly stated as she put Amelia's timetable back down on the table and picked her own up. "But at least we have the first period free. Any plans on what we should do?"

"Laze around?" Amelia suggested, Kelly smiled and grabbed for her glass of juice. They enjoyed watching almost everyone else dashing off to class once the bell had rung to signal the start of lessons.

~~

The next few days went quickly. It seemed like most of Amelia's time was spent going to lessons and doing copious amounts of homework. The only thing that seemed to be breaking this circle was the fact that most of her classes had Mariah Hayes and Albus Potter in them.

This normally wouldn't have bothered her, if it wasn't for the fact that each of them was trying to either maim or attempt to kill the other. There were various 'accidents happening in most of the classes such as; Albus charming Mariah to keep slapping herself, or Mariah picks up one of the stuffed animals in Transfiguration and using it as a mask to scare Albus enough that he ran from the room screaming at the top of his lungs.  
When the teacher was watching them, they just seemed to settle for glaring at each other, mouthing words of hatred and attempting to trip the other whenever they had the opportunity.

Amelia, although found this enjoyable to watch, did find it a bit tedious at times. Especially when she was trying to get on with her own work and Mariah and Albus's 'war' just escalated out of control. Scorpius Malfoy seemed to always be caught in the middle of the two's fighting; having been friends of both of them since first year he never seemed to actually take sides, choosing instead to just watch the scenes unfold as though it was his source of entertainment.

Both Mariah and Albus had already gotten detentions today for their behaviour in lessons, which thankfully were apart from each other. Amelia would dread to think just what would happen if they had to serve it together, she wondered which of them would be sent to the hospital wing. Her money was on Albus.

"What are you doing this afternoon?" Adam asked Amelia as he sat down next to her at the Hufflepuff table in the great hall for lunch.

Amelia turned to look at him. "Nothing major planned," she told him with a shrug, "just some homework. Why? What have you got planned?"

"It's James's birthday today."

Amelia never would have guessed, it's not like James was counting down to this day since they started school, or had been wearing a badge that could only be described as big enough to eat off of. "So, just a birthday party for him. We're planning to have it in an abandoned classroom."

"Of course, where else would it be?" Amelia asked, thinking that her brother was extremely predictable.

"Don't give me that tone, we have permission this time." Adam said, taking a sip of Amelia's pumpkin juice. "Professor Longbottom is going to be joining us." He gave her a small smile.

"And why exactly is Professor Longbottom going to be joining us?" Amelia asked with a small frown, wondering just what party was safe enough for a professor to join in on.

"Well, we thought why don't we have a party a child would have? We're having pass the parcel, jelly and Ice cream, pin the tail on the Manticore, the usual party games."

"That sounds really good actually," Amelia admitted. "Yeah, go on then I'm in."

"Excellent. James's family who go here will be going, bring Kelly with you. I think Albus is going to bring Scorpius, but it should be a laugh. I've heard that there's going to be party bags." Adam said with a wink at her before standing up.

"Oh, party bags." Amelia cheered loudly, "I can't wait for the party bags."

"No one ever can. Bring your dancing shoes; I'm so going to win musical statues."

"Yeah, you wish you could win musical statues," Amelia scoffed; Adam laughed before walking over to the Gryffindor table.

~~

"You moved!" Albus cried loudly from the sidelines, pointing at Scorpius who quickly threw a party hat at him. "You moved again."

"Sorry, Scorpius. I'm afraid that you've lost." James said with a laugh. "Which means that Professor Longbottom, is the winner of musical statues."

Everyone let out cheers and claps as Professor Longbottom gave a bow and smiled at them, taking his winning prize off of Adam. It was a bar of Honeydukes birthday chocolate, little balloons were painted into the chocolate and each balloon was a different flavour.

"Now, who's ready for jelly and ice cream?" Adam asked, walking over to the table that held the jelly and ice cream; a charm was placed over it to keep the ice cream frozen. Everyone sat down on vacant chairs as Adam handed out the desserts.

"Who would have thought that this would be so fun?" Lucy Weasley asked Amelia and Kelly as she pushed her blonde hair behind her ears, before digging into her dessert. Lucy was in the same year as both Kelly and Amelia and was Amelia's potions partner this year, they hadn't really talked much before but Amelia found herself really liking the girl.

"I for one didn't." Kelly stated as she too began eating. It was strawberry flavoured which was her favourite.

"I can't wait for pass the parcel." Amelia admitted. "Look at James; he looks like he's really enjoying himself, who said you needed alcohol at birthdays."

"Not me," Kelly admitted. "I'm not too big a fan of alcohol."

"Not since that one time in the Gryffindor common room when James snuck in a few bottles of that wine stuff." Lucy said with a laugh, Kelly went red.

"I can't believe that night; I tried to forget most of it. This is why I shouldn't hang around the Potters or Weasleys." Kelly said with a shake of her head.

"You start to learn that the Potters are a bad influence," came the voice of James's girlfriend, she was sitting with her friend Steph who was the winner of pin the tail on the Manticore. It was a close call after everyone thought that Steph was going to pin the tail on the Manticore stomach, but due to some sixth sense she seemed to have she managed to pin the tail in the right place. No other person in the room knew anyone else who had managed to achieve the difficult feat of defeating the Manticore.

Steph's winnings of Honeydukes chocolate was currently being crumbled on top of her jelly and ice cream.

"Tell me about it." Lucy said with a laugh, "Try being related to them. Although if you think that the Potters are a bad influence you should wait until you meet all of the Weasleys together. I'm glad that I'm the normal one of the family."

"And that's no easy thing to achieve," came Roxanne Weasley's voice, James's cousin who was in fifth year, she had dark coloured skin and extremely curly hair which she had put up into a high bun. She was the Gryffindor chaser and was in her fourth year at Hogwarts.

"We're just a big family of nutters," Lucy laughed, before nodding over to where the boys all sat together. Albus had somehow mashed his jelly and ice cream together and was trying to drink it out of the bowl, most of it was dripping down his robes causing the others to laugh and for Professor Longbottom to shake his head at them. Being a friend of the Potter and Weasley family, he was sadly quite used to seeing this kind of behaviour.

Albus laughed before trying to make Hugo eat the jelly off of his robes. Hugo let out a yell before shoving him away and running over to Lily Potter, James's younger sister, hoping that she would protect him.

"They're also disgusting; at least we girls are normal." Lucy laughed before continuing to eat her food.

Kelly just looked distastefully over at Albus, who was rubbing his robe in Fred's face, and put down her bowl of jelly and ice cream, not wanting to eat anymore. Amelia was trying not to look at them, Lucy just shook her head at the boys and continued eating her dessert.

"How can you still eat that after what they're doing?" Kelly asked, nodding over to the boys; Professor Longbottom had given up trying to talk sense into any of them and was having a conversation with Louis Weasley and Rose Weasley.

"I've seen them do a lot worse, believe me. You just become immune after a while." Lucy admitted with a shrug.

"I don't think I could ever become immune."

"Then hope that you never see Albus in shorts rubbing cereal into his skin," Roxanne said shaking her head.

"Why on earth was he doing that?" Kelly cried as Amelia frowned in disgust.

"Including the milk?" Amelia asked, wondering just why on earth this was important.

"Yep, and he used the spoon to rub it into his skin."

"What? But, why?"

"No idea? I think he thought that it would make his skin softer, but you learn not to question Albus's behaviour. He claimed to be sleepwalking at the time." Lucy said, trying to ignore Albus who was trying to convince Adam to give him another bowl of food, to which Adam was declining. "We would have believed him if it wasn't five in the afternoon and he had been awake for over twenty four hours."

"You have a weird family," Kelly said, disgusted with a shake of her head.

"Tell me about it."

"You wouldn't think that they're nearly adults would you?" Roxanne laughed. "I don't think that they'll ever grow up."

"I second that," Amelia said with a laugh.

The party carried on in much the same way. More games were played; with James winning the pass the parcel, Albus yelled out that James winning was a fix. But no one paid him any attention at all. At the end of the party, everyone was given a party bag each. Amelia's was filled with a few sweets, some joke toys from Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes, and some other random goodies.  
Amelia had to admit that this was the best party she had been to, in a very long time.


	3. Chapter 3

Charms homework finished, Amelia gave a sigh as she put everything back into her bag and closed it, pushing her hand through her brown hair as she looked around the field. It was the third week of September and Amelia was already feeling pretty tired of all of her homework, the teachers seemed to be giving them more and more each week, causing Amelia to spend more time studying in the common room or outside under a tree on the grounds, which was where she was situated right now.

It was whilst she was doing her homework on the grounds, that Amelia noticed James spent a lot of time with Hagrid, He seemed to be helping him out with the animals, feeding them and making sure that they had proper bedding in their pens and cage, sometimes he would disappear into the forbidden forest with Hagrid by his side.

It was after a few times of watching James do this that she walked over to him as he was moving some bags of food around.

"Hey James," Amelia said as she leant on a fence post and looked at him, he turned around and smiled at her as he placed the bag down and walked over to her.

"Hey Amelia, how are you?" he asked her as he wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm.

"I'm alright just loaded down with homework, how about you?" Amelia asked with a smile at him.

"I'm doing good, not much homework yet," James said.

"So what are you doing? I've seen you helping out Hagrid for a while now" Amelia asked, indicating the bags around the empty enclosure that James was currently standing in.

"I'm helping out Hagrid so I can learn more about the animals; it's to help me get a job with animals at the ministry," James stated, jerking his thumb back towards Hagrid who was near his house pouring a liquid around his pumpkin patch.

Amelia was amazed, "That is really impressive."

"Yeah, I think so too," James said as he leaned against the fence next to Amelia. "I think of it as extra credit. When my seventh year is finished, I hope to go work with my Uncle Charlie for a few years, he works with Dragons and I've applied to intern with him. It'll really be good for me as I'll get the experience with the animals."

"So you want to work with Dragons then?" Amelia asked, running her hand over the wooden fence, it was smooth against her fingers.

"Oh yeah, and other dangerous animals, there's a department in the Ministry of Magic that deals with keeping them away from Muggles, so I'm going to apply to work there after I come back."

"You must love animals then," Amelia said with a smile, James grinned at her.

"I've loved them since I was young, I was always bringing in random animals I'd found in the garden home to study them, Mum use to go mental."

They both laughed, "So what do you want to do with your life?" James asked Amelia.

"I want to be a Healer," Amelia told him, "I'm not sure what area of healing I want to get into though?"

"How about the burns unit?" James suggested to her. "There's a very high chance that I'll be spending a lot of time there when I'm dealing with dragons, will be nice to see a beautiful face."

Amelia blushed as she shoved James's arm. "I might just do that. Although I don't want to be seeing you in there all the time, otherwise I'll be thinking you're up to something."

James laughed at her before standing up straight, "I should probably get back to moving all of this around. I'll see you later on Amelia." He said walking backwards towards the bag of food he had placed on the ground earlier.

Amelia gave him a smile before walking back to the castle.

Albus huffed as he sat down next to Scorpius on the sofa in the Slytherin common room. Scorpius was currently inspecting his nails, trying to ignore his huffing best friend next to him. But Albus was having none of this and huffed again, this time closer to Scorpius's ear.

Scorpius let out a sigh before putting his hand back down onto his lap and turning to face Albus, raising an eyebrow at him in questioning.

"Aren't you going to ask me what's wrong?" Albus asked Scorpius.

Scorpius sighed again before pointing at his eyebrow which was still raised in question. "Can you not see the eyebrow? It's questioning."

"Well, no because I don't spend all my time staring at your face and trying to work out what it's saying to me," Albus stated.

"Fine!" Scorpius said, throwing his arms up in exasperation before adding, "What is wrong Albus?"

Albus glared at him for a moment before saying, "That thing that you call a friend!"

"You're going to have to be more specific here Alby," Scorpius said, waving his hand as though encouraging him to elaborate.

"You know I hate you calling me Alby -" Albus huffed at him crossing his arms angrily, "- And I mean the Queen of Hell herself!"

"Oh, you mean your future wife Mariah?" Scorpius said getting who he meant.

Albus blanched before having a slight coughing fit, "Wife? WIFE! She is never going to be my wife; it will be a cold day in Hell if that ever happens."

"Then you better invest in a good coat Alby my boy, because I bet that within the next, say six years, you two will be married. Probably with a child called Pedro or something," Scorpius sounded disgusted at the idea of someone naming their child Pedro; it sounded too much like Pedalo to him.

"Then you are very sorely mistaken!" Albus cried, shaking his head and wondering just what his best friend had been eating to cause him to speak such lies.

Scorpius let out a laugh, "Fine, we'll pretend that you're not madly in love with her."

"I'm not in love with that beast! She's my mortal enemy."

"You used to be good friends," Scorpius stated, reminding him of a much simpler time in their second year.

"That part of my life is dead to me!" Albus said, spitting to emphasize how dead and buried it was to him, Scorpius only just moved out of the way in time.

"You are one disgusting boy do you know that?" Scorpius moved to sit on the other sofa before continuing to talk to Albus. "Now tell me just what is bothering you before I die of excitement."

"She pushed me down the stairs!" Albus cried angrily.

Scorpius gave him a once over look and saw that he had no injuries.

"You look fine to me," he said, looking back up into Albus's face. A serious look was set onto it.

"I almost died."

Scorpius rolled his eyes at Albus, before standing up and picking up his school bag. Albus looked up at him in shock.

"Well? What are you waiting for? Avenge me!" Albus cried incredulously.

Scorpius frowned at him, "but you're not dead," he stated obviously.

"Well, I could have died!" Albus reminded him. Scorpius let out another sigh.

"If you had died, then I promise that I would have avenged you,"

"You would?" Albus asked, as he too stood up and picked his bag up; they both began walking out of the common room. Scorpius threw his arm around Albus's shoulders.

"Yep, and I would find the biggest stairs, I could and push her down them too, then you could both be joined together forever in the afterlife."

Albus huffed again, but followed Scorpius as they walked down to their next class which was potions.

Amelia quickly rushed into the classroom and walked over to her seat next to Lucy, who had been doodling on her piece of parchment in front of her.

"Sorry I'm almost late, I was held up by talking to James," Amelia apologised, as she pulled her text book, some parchment, a quill and ink out of her bag and placed them on the desk in front of her.

"You weren't too late, I've only got here myself," Lucy told her, "and you were talking to James eh?"

Amelia shook her head at Lucy as she wiggled her eyebrows suggestively at her, "Relax; me and your cousin were just talking. I saw him helping out Hagrid and I wondered why," she finished with a shrug.

"Oh, he's doing that for extra credit isn't he?" Lucy asked, stopping her doodling and resting on her elbows in front of her.

"That's what he said," Amelia shrugged, "It seems like everyone is doing it nowadays. I know that Adam sometimes helps out by making potions for the hospital wing."

"Well, he is a Potions prodigy," Lucy said with a laugh. It was true. Adam had been obsessed with making Potions since he started Hogwarts. Always coming top of the class, he was put forward a year in his fifth year, sitting his Potions NEWTs in his sixth year, he passed them with top marks and was learning much more difficult Potions with the teacher. The rest of his class seemed to be quite a bit behind him.

"He's weird about Potions," Amelia laughed, "hopefully some of his talent rubs off on me."

She was better than average in this class, scraping an Exceeds Expectations in most of her potions and essays. Lucy was very much the same, which was helpful that they sat next to each other.

"You're doing really well," Lucy stated as Albus and Scorpius walked into the classroom, "unlike some people I might add."

Amelia's eyes followed Lucy's gaze, "Well, they are distracted by each other. Albus spends most of his time fighting with Mariah and poor Scorpius is just stuck between the both of them, which is a shame, because Adam was telling me that Scorpius was one of the most promising students in this class."

"Well, it's his own fault for letting my idiot of a cousin distract him," Lucy stated, waving back at Albus who waved at her with a goofy grin on his face.

"He is quite distracting," Amelia agreed with a laugh.

"Maybe you should get Adam to tutor you if you want to get your grade up to an outstanding?" Lucy suggested as the teacher entered the room and asked the room for quiet.

"That's a good idea actually, why didn't I think of that before?" Amelia asked as she turned her eyes to the front of the class, reading the writing that was appearing on the board.

"Well, I am the smart one in this friendship."

Amelia just scoffed before letting out a laugh.

"I hate her," Albus seethed as he chewed his sausages slowly and violently at dinner later that night. Scorpius looked up from his magazine to see that Albus was glaring over at Mariah who was currently balancing a potato on a spoon and attempting to throw it and catch it with said spoon, she was currently failing and there was a nice pile of potatoes on the floor around her, a dangerous hazard that had already caused at least three students to fall to the floor.

"I actually bloody hate her," Albus moodily stabbed his fork into his own potato, picking it up and aiming it at Mariah. Scorpius was quick to snatch it away; Albus gave him a 'what the hell did you do that for' look.

"You could really hurt her by throwing that," Scorpius stated seriously, keeping the fork away from Albus who was still giving him the look. Scorpius saw Albus inch his hand towards his dinner plate, before Scorpius could stop him, Albus had grabbed a gravy covered sausage.

"Well, I'll just have to throw a sausage at her then!" Before Scorpius could stop him, Albus had already thrown the sausage at Mariah; it landed with a loud 'smack' on the side of her face, the gravy on it didn't help. Mariah dropped her spoon and potato, causing the potato to hit the table before it rolled off of it and onto the floor.

She turned to glare at Albus straight away, who was pretending to be deep in conversation with Scorpius, which didn't work as Scorpius was staring at Mariah in shock, his mouth opened wide and the fork with a potato in it still in his hand.

Mariah fumed before she pushed herself away from the table and stood up angrily, grabbing for a jug of pumpkin juice before storming over to an oblivious Albus who was sitting on the same side as her on the table only a few seats along. Scorpius followed her knowing that this was not going to end well, he had time to warn Albus, but he really wanted to know where this was going to end up, so he merely moved out of the way of the splash zone.

Albus noticing Scorpius's sudden change in direction turned around to see Mariah standing behind him, an outline of sausage made from the gravy visible on her cheek. Before Albus could say anything or even smile tauntingly at her Mariah had poured the jug of pumpkin juice onto Albus's lap, ice and all.

Albus let out a loud, high pitched shriek as he stood up suddenly, jumping up and down in horror as he felt the coldness and pumpkin juice spreading through his uniform. He looked up in horror at Mariah who was laughing at him and pointing wildly at the area that she had just soaked yelling, "Albus has wet himself!"

There was loud laughter coming from most of the other houses as people stood up to get a better look at Albus, who was looking angrily at Mariah, she merely blew him a kiss before turning around and going to sit back down.

"Don't do it!" Scorpius yelled, standing up and trying to grab hold of Albus over the table but he didn't reach him in time. Albus picked up the bowl of mash in front of him and followed Mariah down the table, as she sat down and placed the jug on the side, she gave a high five to her friend who was sitting across from her.

Albus turned the bowl over as soon as he made his way over to her, the mash falling onto Mariah's head and dripping slowly down her face and hair. Mariah let out her own shriek as she shuddered at the feeling of the mash in her hair.

Albus laughed loudly as he 'smushed' the mash into her hair, making sure that it was properly pushed into her hair.

Mariah stood up quickly causing Albus to yell and run away from her, falling on a few potatoes, his confidence instantly vanishing as he ran for his life, Mariah was quick oh his heels as he ran for the door. Laughter and yelling was heard from the other students in the room as they watched the scene unfolding in front of them, some of them betting on Mariah catching up to Albus and giving him the beating of his life.

They were unable to find out though, as by the time Mariah had neared Albus, Neville was standing by the doors waiting for them with a deep disappointed frown on his face. Both of them stopped suddenly in front of him knowing that they were in big trouble for what they just done. The laughter died down behind them as the other students listened to what punishment the two would be getting.

"You will each be serving two detentions in the kitchens," Professor Longbottom told them sternly, "helping the house elves to prepare and cook the food, seeing as though you think that it's funny to be throwing all of their hard work around and at each other. Not only will you be serving your detentions you will also be staying behind after dinner tonight to clean up the mess that you and others have made, without magic."

Albus and Mariah groaned as they heard their punishment, the students all jeered at them, some yelling 'gutted' and others planning to make a lot of mess under their table for Albus and Mariah to clean up.

"Can we at least go and change sir?" Albus asked, grabbing hold of his trousers and trying not to make the cold material to touch his legs. Mariah was trying to pick the mash out of her hair.

Neville smiled widely down at them before shaking his head, "No, this will serve as a reminder that food belongs in stomachs and not on uniform or hair," and with those words he walked away from the two students and up towards the staff table.

Albus vaguely remembered someone yelling "burn!" as he stormed over to where he had been sitting, making sure to elbow Mariah out of his way.

A/N: I am so sorry for the wait! I really and truly thought that I had more chapters out of this. :S I need to get some sort of day that I update this on for definite!


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